DECEMBER 5, 1941

NEW YORK, Thursday—Yesterday was a busy day. In contrast, I find myself devoting my time today
to catching up on the mail and doing various things in my house here.

My husband holds over my head the fact that if these houses are sold, I shall have
to leave them at very short notice. Since we have always kept certain things in locked
closets, I fill up my spare minutes and hours trying to decide what to do with things
that have a certain sentimental value and, which, perhaps, none of our children will have any real use for now, or in the future.

Yesterday I found some very beautiful and very large old
tablecloths
and napkins with handsome embroidered coats of arms, such as no one would think of
indulging in at the present time. In fact, very few people who are economically inclined,
use large or small tablecloths
anymore
, and certainly not these large napkins, when table mats and small napkins are so
much easier to launder.

Also, most of us have learned to use paper in many ways which we did not consider
possible in our grandmother's day. However, we may return to napkin rings and the
careful use of napkins, since paper is now to be conserved.

Even then, I cannot see that these big cloths and big napkins would be anything but
a burden to any of our children. They have been laid away in a trunk for many long
years, because I did not feel justified in using them.

With children scattered all over the country, and only two owning their own homes;
china, glass and silver, accumulated by former generations, seem irksome to them.
Perhaps, what we are all learning is the fact that we should not be burdened by possessions,
but should enjoy them while we have them. And, if they are destroyed, we should take
it as lightly as our British friends have been able to do.

I have just been sent a report which has been reprinted in the Scientific Monthly,
and written by Dr. Bart J. Bok and Margaret W. Mayall. Both of them are astronomers
and the report is written to prove that too many people put faith in astrologists
and their predictions for the future, believing that astrology has a scientific foundation
in astronomy.

This theory, the authors completely explode. They take me to task for not having been
firmer in an answer which I gave to a question in the Ladies' Home Journal. I can only say that I fear I have never taken any form of fortune telling
very seriously.